The Art of a Good Lingo Therapist
by DeniseV
Summary: Just a moment with John and Rodney, a little over a month after the end of the episode Sunday.  Rodney could be doing better.


It was the time of day more than anything else that had Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard baffled. His friend, sometimes willing, sometimes reluctant cohort on dangerous missions, partner in teamwork and troubleshooting, ally or enemy in games and other slightly more nefarious goings-on, again…finally, on Atlantis – man, had John been an ass for a long, long time about _that_ - and sometime thorn in his side, one Rodney McKay, was sitting at a table in the commissary, a not so baffling cup of coffee on the table, his fingers grasped about the mug's handle. If asked, John would say that Rodney looked like he was daydreaming, which, of course, was not possible. Dr. Rodney McKay, genius Canadian physicist, chief of science on this adventurous exploration in the Pegasus Galaxy, a man whose brain never rested and had come up with one miraculous team-saving, expedition-saving, Atlantis-saving Hail Mary after another, would never think to find time to daydream. John knew this, and John knew Rodney best. Maybe the colonel's eyes were deceiving him.

"What're you doing?" Sheppard asked as he sat opposite his friend, his own fresh, full cup of coffee firmly in hand.

"Oh, I don't know. Just thinking."

"Just thinking? Like…daydreaming?"

"You could say that," Rodney replied. The scientist looked down into his half empty mug and then looked up into Sheppard's eyes. "I've been thinking about…strange things," he said, his hand waiving before him without any real meaning, other than to indicate that he really didn't think it important enough to elaborate on.

"Really? Like what?"

"I don't know," McKay said as he fixated once more on his coffee cup.

"Well, you must know," John countered. "Are the things you're thinking about stranger than Wraith? Because that's pretty strange, even after a couple of years of fighting them. They're pretty weird," he added with an animated but clearly faked shiver, his face mirroring what he'd just said with equal false sincerity.

Rodney grinned crookedly, reluctantly, at his friend's silly antics. John seemed to be making extra and concerted efforts lately to get Rodney to laugh. McKay hadn't been much in the mood, though, and had been witness to a lot of John Sheppard in failure mode because of it. "No, not as weird as the Wraith," McKay sighed in reply.

Sheppard wrinkled his brow, worried about Rodney's quiet demeanor. He seemed…well, the right word, by definition, was depressed. He'd had reason to be, and for some time now. Carson's death, the one month anniversary of the tragic event had just passed, had been hard on so many of them, but it had really thrown McKay for a loop. John thought that he knew why, but he also thought that he and his team, and Elizabeth, Radek, others, had rallied around, helping one another through the difficult times following the Scottish physician's sudden death. They'd all needed to rely on each other; Carson had left a terrible hole in the fabric of their lives. Sheppard would never say _that_ out loud; he'd certainly be pounced on by McKay for his tendency toward cliché…and for that rhyme just as well.

The expedition had lost many people; Carson had not been the first and it had already been proven that he would not be the last. Rodney's relationship with the chief medical officer had been different, special. They'd become closer since McKay's own series of near-death experiences; Rodney had opened up more to both Carson and John, something that Sheppard hadn't thought possible in his frustrating teammate, and, more often than not, bane of his existence. But John had thought his and Rodney's own relationship would have helped McKay these last weeks; the two had grown closer than ever, a change for the better that had begun well before Carson's untimely demise. It was both disappointing and worrisome for Sheppard to see that he might have been wrong about that.

"Rodney," John asked, grasping McKay's forearm with his hand and shaking it slightly to gain the distracted man's attention. "What's wrong?"

Rodney looked up and caught John's eyes, warm and caring. He looked back down, his coffee seemed to hold such fascination to him, though Sheppard knew better about that. Something was bothering McKay, or embarrassing him. Or driving him to distraction. Or something. Something wasn't right.

"McKay?"

Rodney kept his head down and finally started talking. "I thought that…I _think_ that it's weird that I haven't cried since we got back," he said, from taking Carson home to Scotland he did not have to say. "I've felt like crying a lot," he admitted, still keeping his head down, not wanting to show John too much. Rodney knew that his eyes told everything. The physicist used to be more open about showing that emotion. John was pretty sure that this change in his friend was _not_ one of the better ones. There were more things that were better about Rodney McKay now than when he first passed through the Stargate in the Milky Way Galaxy and arrived in the Pegasus Galaxy on the other side in the Ancients' amazing city. He was more fit. He was more brave, though it sometimes took effort for some people to actually see that improvement, not only because those people chose not to look carefully enough, but also because McKay seemed intent on propagating the illusion. Sheppard would need to figure out _that_ puzzle some day. Rodney played better with others, despite the fact that that was a lesson far harder learned than it needed to be. And he seemed to have truly learned the meaning of some words that he'd certainly heard of before coming to Pegasus, but never fully grasped their definitions, despite his impressive and abiding genius, until going through this galaxy's life lessons. Words like friendship, commitment, failure, pain, love. And he now had the sad misfortune to add a newly complete understanding to another word since losing Carson. Despair. John Sheppard knew that he, even at his command level in the Air Force, wasn't always the smartest guy in the room, and certainly not when Rodney McKay was around. But he held all the smarts about how to deal with his friend. And he had taken it upon himself to work as, what he himself had dubbed, Rodney's 'lingo therapist'. McKay's surprising trouble at really _getting_ the meaning of some of these words, his confusion at the intense emotions that were brought to the fore and managed to overwhelm the far more familiar and typical Rodney McKay emotions and actions – arrogance, disdain, short-tempered, and yes, uncertain – were understood better, and handled in a far more appropriate way, once John could get Rodney away to talk about them. But Rodney had somehow managed to either become a master at avoiding John, or simply a master at avoiding all. Sheppard was pretty sure, and surely hoped, that it was the latter. John Sheppard hated that it was either.

John nodded at Rodney's last comment. He knew what the physicist meant. There were days when he wanted to cry, too. It wasn't something that he would do, and it wasn't something that he would ever advise his friend to do. John didn't think he could handle McKay like that, and he was certain that McKay wouldn't want to be seen like that. But he _was_ sure that it wouldn't hurt for McKay to know that talking it out, even though that was something that John Sheppard didn't really like doing much, was always something Rodney could grab him for. Always. Because even though John didn't really like doing it, he knew that he was the best at getting Rodney to do it. And that was, after all, the true art of being a good lingo-therapist: putting the patient first.

The End.


End file.
